PayTM & Flipkart among major E-commerce players to invest in Entertainment Sector

Entertainment content makes users visit a particular platform much often than otherwise. E-commerce players are making a smart move on making their customers stay stick to them.

Major e-commerce players are reportedly set to invest about $100 million in acquiring and including entertainment content on their platforms. Few of these players include PayTM, Future Group and Flipkart. The inclusion will be an effort to take on Amazon India.

PayTM had recently announced an addition of various new features to its in-app messaging service called “inbox”. It included features like live TV, news, cricket, entertainment videos and games. The company is now planning to invest about $30 million in this sector. On the other hand, Future Group led by Kishore Biyani, plans on making major investments focusing on the creation of its own entertainment vertical on its many apps. The company is said to invest about $14.5 billion for the inclusion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning in order to support the entertainment content. Various content providers including theatre chains have been contacted by the company to provide them with online and offline tickets. E-commerce giant Flipkart is also looking to add entertainment content on its platform. They are planning to invest about $50 million for including entertainment content. However, the plans are on a hold as the company waits for the completion of the Walmart deal.

PayTM is reportedly keeping its expansion plans under wraps. The company states that the entertainment addition would make sure that the customers making one or two monthly transactions of would visit the portal more often. Senior Vice-President of PayTM, Deepak Abbot said that “If there are users who are doing one transaction a day or a single transaction a week, we can give them more value. We have millions of users, who we can capitalise on. We thought it would be a good way to make them spend more time on the app.”

Apparently the addition of the entertainment feature is said to be a take on Amazon India. The global e-commerce player has a strong entertainment portal Amazon Prime. The prime members enjoy latest TV and movie content and the platform grows speedily. Experts say that the companies believe that entertainment makes the customers stick to the app.

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